February 4, 2000-They Might Be Giants play at the Avalon in Boston, Mass. John Linnell (half of TMBG) will play his "solo" act, along with his band, "The Statesmen," as the opening act. Should rock the house.
I'm going on a "Planned Family Vacation" from school that day. I'm getting Sam Corbett in Corning after his first class, and driving to Boston. We go to Melissa's dad's house. Kevin, Melissa, myself, and Sam (as well as other potential Boston folks that I don't know) attend the show, and we spend the night in Boston. Sam and I make the return trip the next day(Saturday). We will likely stop at Bob's (Droog) house on the way outta Mass.
Got in right as John Linnell was getting on stage. This part of the concert was very cool. The lights and such were quite tame, and the music was the State Songs, which are kinda chilled out a bit. But, we heard a new state song or two and the tunes were very good.
Backing up, right as we got there, I hit the merch booth, as always. I saw these ooold school looking sweatshirts, white with black "They Might Be Giants" and the snowman on front. The lady there said they'd dug them out from deep, deep within the warehouse. I felt highly lucky to snag one, especially after I realized that I'm probably about three years older than the shirt.
They Might Be Giants came on after a not-unreasonable wait. It was...wild. Linnell was center stage, and in quite a few songs when he was featured, the main lighting effect was this bright white light that shone out from behind him...he literally looked like a god. All the usual fun stuff, confetti cannon, puppet heads during an encore, etc. We were in the back, having gotten there late. (We were right next to the guys making balloon animals and hats before TMBG came on...) But when they played The Guitar and a conga line formed, we were all over it. The five of us conga-ed quite a bit nearer the front. All but Sam and I decided it was far to hot/crowded up there for them, they moved back. But up near the front was rocking. Minor amounts of idiots pushing each other around and a LOT of heat, but very fun. During No One Knows My Plan, another conga line sprung up, and away Sam and I went, again. This one actually met up with another line, we wound our way around, ended up even closer to the stage.
By the time it was over, I was too tired to really stand and my voice was nearly shot. It was great. The only problem is that we were stuck for well over an hour waiting to get our coats from the coat check. Boo Avalon coat check Nazis!
Played Tetris Attack, drove home the next day, generally had a fierce time.
